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Released by: Alpha Blue Archives
Released on: 2017.
Director: Stu Segall
Cast: Rene Bond, Heather Vale, Sandy Dempsey, Candy Samples, Carl De Jung, David Boveen, John Holmes, Linda Vroom, Maria Arnold
Year: 1972
The Movie:
Directed by prolific television producer Stu Segall (as Godfrey Daniels) and written by future Ilsa: She Wolf Of The SS director Don Edmonds, 1972's Saddle Tramp Women is a ninety minute feature length sexploitation western featuring decent production values and a good cast.
Segall, who directed some interesting smut and exploitation pictures such as Insatiable and Drive In Massacre, starts the film with some interesting opening credits that play off against some stills of western action and some mellow, rather somber music playing behind it. When the movie itself starts, an old man sporting an eye patch kneels at his son's grave and tells him how scenic and pretty the area is. A friend named Waco - who refers to the old man as J.J. - shows up, they share some whiskey, and they talk about how Clay (Dan Kemp as David Boveen) we killed. Clay is one of the men who killed his son, but there's a man named Blue out there that he still wants dead, sooner rather than later - and to make it happen he'll double the pot. Jed gets on his horse and sets out to finish the job… to bring Blue back to the old man so he can finish the job himself.
Waco tracks down a big black guy named Cody, a former killer himself who is no longer in the business. He remembers the old man's son, Billy Dan Clayton (John Alderman), describing him as a 'mean damn bastard.' Waco wants his help but Cody isn't into the idea, at least not at first. Eventually he's convinced and they decide to pull one over on J.J. to just get him off Waco's back. The pair heads back to meet J.J. at the grave where they tell him Cody is Blue, the man who killed his son. J.J. wants to hang him, they argue and Cody tells him a story…
See, Frank Lawton (Elliott Lindsey as Lindsay Taylor) and his sidekick massacred a family. He and Clay were hired to take them out, but it doesn't go as planned. Cut to a saloon (where that awesome guitar music that's used and the end of the Massacre Mafia Trailer plays!) where some bounty hunters along with Clay and Blue get into a gun fight with Lawton, who winds up dead in the middle of the street. The Sheriff shows up, Clay and Blue claim their bounty on their prey, and they're told it'll be 2-3 days before they can have their money. While they're hanging out in town, they meet Billy Dan Clayton and learn of his reputation with the ladies, how he had a thing going with Amy (Rene Bond) who he used to get to a gal named Jenny Novak (Heather Vale) so that he could buy up her dad's land cheap and sell it to the railroad for a killing. But old man Novak didn't go for it.
As the plot progresses we get a nice girl on girl scene with Amy and another woman, we get some bad comic relief with a few drunks that hang out in the bar/brothel where Amy works, we see Jenny fool around with Clay after telling him how Clayton is harassing her old man, and we get a few shoot outs too. It's here that we learn how Clay and Blue were hired to do a job, get Clayton out of the picture for what he'd been doing to Novak, and how it all ended.
The first eighteen minutes or so looks a lot more modern than the other parts of the movie, around the eighteen minute mark what was clearly sourced from video is now sourced from film. These sequences with Waco, Cody and J.J. - who don't appear in the other parts of the movie - look to have been inserted into the movie at some later point. The packaging notes that this is the extended version of the movie, Tough Guns, but it offers no other information aside from that. It's kind of odd and off putting as the visuals don't match nor does the audio or the score but it does at least help to bridge the story. As to the quality of the movie itself, it's not bad at all. The acting is half way decent here and the sex (which is all softcore) works in the context of the story, it doesn't feel out of place. Rene Bond and Heather Vale are in fine form here and it's nice to see Sandy Demspey show up in a supporting role as well. Candy Samples shows up as one of the brothel workers.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Alpha Blue Archives brings Saddle Tramp Women to DVD framed at 1.33.1 taken from a print that is watchable if unremarkable in its quality. Lots of scratches and whatnot here, it definitely could have been cleaned up more. Colors are okay, not as faded as some vintage sex films tend to look on DVD but hardly restored in the least. Again, it's watchable, just far from perfect. The screen caps below give you a pretty realistic idea of what to expect. The sequences that were shot on video obviously look softer than those shot on film, they're a little wobbly looking in spots.
The only audio option for the feature attraction is an English language Dolby Digital Mono track. There's some hiss throughout and some annoying reverb too. The audio quality here is not very good. Balance is fine but some cleanup work would have helped to make this a much more enjoyable listening experience. Six and a half minutes in there's a buzz on the soundtrack so loud it drowns out the performers for a few seconds. This occurs again a few times throughout the movie and it's annoying as Hell.
ABA has also included three bonus features, starting with Gold Or Bust, a forty-nine minute quickie with no opening or closing credits to let us know how directed it. It starts off with a man named Jed writing a letter to someone named Lil. He tells her about how he's done quite well for himself prospecting for gold and he invites her and a few other ladies out to work - because 'the men here are horny as Hell.' Lil (Maria Arnold) and two friends figure this is a great idea so they pack their things and head west, leaving a third gal there to take care of their current customer base (which we see her do, two at a time).
Back at the camp, the other prospectors complain that the women haven't arrived yet, in fact they don't even think the letter's been written - but then just like that Lil shows up with her two friends and they setup shop right quick. The men are all raring to go, but they girls say that they're not going to get any play until they show up with some gold nuggets. The guys throw a fit and so Jed and the girls decide that they'll let the men work on credit, they just need to hand over their papers. The guys are hornier than they are smart and so they oblige. Everyone gets laid, the girls have a lesbian three-way, and then more people get laid - that's pretty much it. Then some guy shows up out of nowhere, finds gold, yells out 'EUREKA!' and the movie ends.
The Hunter, also produced by Segall (credited as Godfrey Daniels again), written and directed by E. Nickocls (probably Segall again) and featuring Dempsey, is a mostly softcore/slightly hardcore picture that clocks in at just thirty-eight minutes. It starts with a bald psychiatrist talking about his patients and then cut to a young woman moaning 'get it, get it' over and over again as a man goes down on her. They finish up, the guy asks this lady her name and she says 'it doesn't matter now.' She gets into her car and goes for a drive as the opening credits play over some smooth jazz. The woman's name is Linda (and is played by Dempsey) and she's got a problem - her husband can't get her off and so she's constantly masturbating. So distraught is she over this that she takes long, lonely walks on the beach. She talks to the shrink from the opening scene about her problem, how she had never had sex before she married her husband, and how she would masturbate constantly using various methods to control her impulses.
Flashback time - she has dinner with her man, then a bath, then they fool around in bed but it isn't doing anything for her… at all. Then she heads into the living room looking resplendent in her pink sheer teddy, so that she can use the world's loudest vibrator on herself. Cut to another driving scene. Linda then picks up a hunky hitchhiker who declares this to be his lucky day! They chat about how he likes to 'groove and have a ball' with his friends. They go to his place where Matt (Norman Fields), Peg (Linda Vroom) and Horse (John Holmes) are discussing Machiavelli. Turns out the hitchhiker is named Bert (Richard Smedly) and his roommates worry that the girl he's brought home might be a spy or a C.I.A. agent! Regardless, Bert brings Linda into their pad and they get it on in the back room. Upstairs a couple screws and as they do, the rest of the roommates decide to join in which leads to a big old orgy. After that, Linda talks to her husband on the phone - he won't be back for at least two or three more days, so she goes for another drive, then there's a great lesbian three way that ends the movie.
It would appear that there's some footage missing from this one, as the psychiatrist angle is never revived and we never find out if Linda and her husband reconcile or not, though it does say 'THE END' very quickly before the running time is completely over. So who knows. Regardless, this is alright. Dempsey is pretty smokin' here, the true star of the film, she looks great and her acting is solid too. The camera work isn't bad, the locations are okay and the supporting cast remarkably decent as well. Cool soundtrack too, kind of psychedelic in its own way. It's odd that this is packaged with the other movies on this disc, however, as this is clearly not a western whereas the other three are. Who knows.
Last but not least, Uprising At Box Canyon is a forty-two minute short from 1972 that also features Sandy Dempsey in a role. The movie, which has no opening or closing credits, takes us to Box Canyon, population twenty-three. Here a few prospectors, one of whom is named Tim, and their dog pan for gold. The guys are excited when they learn that a quartet of lovely ladies - Nora Wieternik, Sandy Dempsey, Andy Bellamy and a mystery gal - are on their way to the town to provide sexual services for the male population.
Cut to a sex scene that takes place out in the woods and that cuts off rather abruptly. It's one of the hookers boffing the carriage driver. From there, the four girls get into their wagon and make the trip to the titular canyon. On the way, a group of bandits kidnap the prostitutes, tie them up and rape them. You can hear the director yell 'CUT FOR A MINUTE' as the bandits tie the girls and the driver to the wagon. Nora Wieternik is chocked and killed, the other three are left alive but roughed up and tortured. One hooker takes a piss in a stream.
“I've been fucked better by a fourteen year old eunuch, and he paid cash!â€
When the prospectors realize the girls haven't showed up yet they decide to head into town and look for them - no dice! So they head out to find them, and they find the driver of the carriage tied up. He tells them where he thinks the bandits took the girls and after untying him, head off to save them. After that happens, the three surviving hookers pay back the prospectors for saving them with grubby old west sex, after which the bandits get their just deserts and then we get some footage of a snack slithering around. FIN!
This one is short, but pretty decent. The location work is solid and the period costumes for the four female stars is nicely done. There's a decent amount of sex here, most of it fairly rough, but it's performed with an appreciable amount of realism without overdoing it. Good camerawork and a solid score help here too.
Rounding out the extras are a static menu and the Alpha Blue Archives Retro Starlets Trailer, showing off some of the other titles available in the line.
The Final Word:
Alpha Blue Archive's DVD release of Saddle Tramp Women offers up three trashy, adult oriented western pictures and one XXX rarity that has nothing to do with the old west at all. These pictures are pretty obscure, so the presentation quality is somewhat forgivable. Regardless, Sandy Dempsey and Rene Bond fans should find a lot to like here, as should those with an affinity for smutty westerns (and we know you're out there).
